Sunday, January 27, 2013

Media and Ideology: Reflection

Croteau’s “Media and Ideology” was
such a fitting piece for me to read at this point in my life. The work that I
do with PARC, as well as the topics that I enjoy reading about, tend to have a
foundation in criticizing the ideology of the dominant society. Croteau notes
that “when scholars examine media products to uncover their ‘ideology’, they
are interested in the underlying images of society they provide. In this
context, an ideology is basically a system of meaning that helps to define and
explain the world and that makes value judgments about that world” (159). I
personally believe that the ideology of the dominant society is one that is
patriarchal, White supremacist, and anti-Black. This ideology is often conveyed
in various forms of media, although somewhat subtle to the unquestioning eye. To
have the media act as a medium for the dominant ideology, given the prominence
of media in our everyday life, is an incredibly powerful way to indoctrinate
people. More often than not the media that we consume isn't obviously
misogynistic or racist, instead the things being presented often seem “natural”
or “normal”. Croteau touches upon this wonderfully in his section ‘Ideology as
Normalization’. He states:

Media
texts can be seen as key sites where basic social norms are articulated. The
media gives us pictures of social interaction and social institutions that, by
their sheer repetition on a daily basis, can play important roles in shaping
broad social definitions…the accumulation of media images suggests what is
‘normal’ (163).

When
we are constantly being faced with certain behaviors we begin to see them as
“natural”. When in reality what has happened is that those behaviors have become naturalized in our minds because of how
regularly we see these behaviors. This can be particularly harmful when we do
not have many interactions with the communities whom we are watching or reading
about. This was the thinking behind much of the protest about the Oxygen
reality show All My Babies Mama’s (read
more about the controversy here). Black folk in television are often presented
as pimps, hos, minstrels, thugs, unstable, and various incarnations of the
aforementioned tropes as well as others. When not looking critically it’d be
easy for people to not realize the proliferation of those tropes and to not realize the
ways in which they have begun to see every-day Black folk in similar ways, even
subconsciously. This is the reason why when a ‘well-spoken’ Black person speaks
they often get showered with compliments of how “articulate” and “eloquent”
they are. Those delivering the compliments do not realize exactly where their
surprise is coming from and instead thinks they are being complimentary when in
reality they are behaving in a manner that shows a subscription to the dominant
view of Black folks being under-educated and inherently inarticulate. At this
point I’ve only focused on the way this type of representation of Black folk
affect those outside of the Black community. To try and touch upon the ways it
affects Blacks, particularly Black youth, would double the length of this post.
To put it simply, the ways in which Blacks are often represented in media lends
a direct hand in the internalization of racist and anti-Black beliefs within
the Black community itself. This, however, is not a call for all representations of the Black community in media to be "positive", but rather a call for balance. As Langston Hughes said in "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" we, as Black folk, "know we are beautiful, and ugly too". Instead of representing the reality of the multifarious nature of the Black community the media tends to simply represent the image of the Black community that falls in line with society's dominant ideology.

Another
way in which we can see how the dominant society’s ideology is being dispersed
through media would be to look at the treatment of Django Unchained. The film is being heralded as a great film about
slave resistance when in reality it is simply a revenge film that takes place
during slave times. A truly great film about slave resistance would be Haile
Gerima’s Sankofa (which can be found
in its entirety, although not the best quality, on Youtube). Our society has a
focus on the individual, which is why a film where an individual takes out
entire plantations can be beloved by all even when it does not truly represent
what most resistance mobilizations look like. Sankofa, on the other hand, truly shows the collective nature of
resistance and revolution. However, that theme (as well as many others), goes
against the dominant ideology and therefore that film gets far less attention than
the inferior Django UnChained.

The
viewpoints I have expressed in this post can be seen as controversial to some
but that is because they directly counter many dominant themes of our society,
particularly the false notion that we are passed conversations about race
because we are ‘color-blind’ or have ‘evolved’. Because of this dominant theme
those who do decide to have conversations that counter the dominant ideology
are accused of being purposefully controversial or playing the ‘race-card’
(which is an offensive accusation that highlights the fact that we have not yet
‘evolved’). Similar sentiments are had when people try to expose the ‘subtle’
misogyny in pop culture. Let us not fall for “common sense” and rather continue
to operate with a critical eye, for if we do not look at everything critically
then we may easily succumb to an ideology that seeks to repress us. This is one of the points I hope we touch upon in class: the importance of analyzing and questioning everything (see Croteau page 166).

4 comments:

“I personally believe that the ideology of the dominant society is one that is patriarchal, White supremacist, and anti-Black.”

Agreed. Everything seems to center around the happiness of a white male. Advertisements especially are my “proof” of this. Even for commercials that are technically marketed toward a “female” audience—razors, tampons, etc.—it is for “women” to groom themselves for patriarchal standards of beauty. And the ratio of happy white people to happy black people in media representation is just ridiculous.

“This is the reason why when a ‘well-spoken’ Black person speaks they often get showered with compliments of how “articulate” and “eloquent” they are. Those delivering the compliments do not realize exactly where their surprise is coming from and instead thinks they are being complimentary when in reality they are behaving in a manner that shows a subscription to the dominant view of Black folks being under-educated and inherently inarticulate.”

Now I will need to seriously need to check myself. I want to say that I honestly think you are articulate, so much more so than I am, regardless of my conditioning. I want to say that my tendency to want to call you articulate does not come from a place of surprise, but of genuine feelings. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I am not affected by the images that we are all steeped in 24/7. Perhaps this is a demonstration of how deep my own social conditioning is—that some things are still indistinguishable from “true feelings.” Perhaps there is no such thing as “true feelings” outside of the social context of this society. This troubles me especially because I respect you so much—but where does this respect from? Is it my own conditioned fear, as a white person, that somehow an educated black person is a threat to my own place of privilege? I feel like I need to relearn how to interact with you and think about you because the media has already taught me all of my life what to expect from someone with darker skin, and how I should behave around them. (please tell me if I have crossed any lines in saying any of this, or if I am speaking with some sort of “apologist” tone that is offensive)

“Let us not fall for “common sense” and rather continue to operate with a critical eye, for if we do not look at everything critically then we may easily succumb to an ideology that seeks to repress us. This is one of the points I hope we touch upon in class: the importance of analyzing and questioning everything.”I too hope that we address this in class. I enjoyed this commentary and look forward to reading more from you in the future. :)

I think the checking of oneself has to happen when you're complimenting a Black person for eloquence when if someone who weren't Black were saying the same thing they wouldn't necessarily garner the same praise. Although trying to break that down in the moment is quite difficult. Don't feel bad about calling me, specifically *me*, articulate/eloquent though; it's one of the few traits that I have actively tried to hone and continue to work on because I view it as a necessity for my future career and life path.

It's a hard line because at times it's difficult to see where our own true beliefs end and the things we've taken in subconsciously begin. Thanks for commenting :)

Well written Andrea how are you? "Our society has a focus on the individual, which is why a film where an individual takes out entire plantations can be beloved by all even when it does not truly represent what most resistance mobilizations look like". Ahh the media or should I say the gateway drug to the dominant structure that destroy's humanity day by day. These representations feed us false representations through the media via internet via television and movies are all as you said a reflection of the dominant ideology. We do then learn ways of living and ways of doing things through these representations and a lot of the times we end up doing it subconsciously. Until we actually take courses and read on the truths on what is actually being done "behind the scenes" until then we do not see the racist, sexist, oppressive representations that actually degrade and destroy our day to day lives.